


Maybe I Can Be The Cute One

by DragonintheLibrary



Category: Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Genre: An optimistic version of historical attitudes towards queer folks, Bisexual Goth Suzy, Gen, Gender-creative Sam, Sam POV, Sam and Suzy are buds, Ten Years Later, There's no plot, They're just hanging out and chatting, They're kinda codependent, Tiny NYC apartment, What these crazy kids are up to, actually, don't at me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29420859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonintheLibrary/pseuds/DragonintheLibrary
Summary: Ten years later, Sam and Suzy are roommates in the city, and queer bffs.
Relationships: Sam Shakusky & Suzy Bishop





	Maybe I Can Be The Cute One

**Author's Note:**

> I just rewatched Moonrise Kingdom with my partner and one of our friends. My girlfriend said said she'd love to see a sequel set ten years in the future. My brain took that and ran: I pictured a film by a different director (I love Wes, but his movies about adults are usually sad, and also he is A Dude, and I'd love a different take on these characters), about Sam and Suzy as twenty-somethings in the city being creative and young and queer. I imagined them as best friends, but not really in a romantic relationship anymore. I'm not a film maker so I cannot bring this to life, but I wrote a scene in the tone of the movie that I'm picturing. Thanks to my girlfriend and friend for chatting about this headcannon with me!
> 
> Title is from "I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore" by Lucy Dacus because I don't know how to make titles without stealing them from songs.

July, 1975 - New York City

Sam Shakusky sat on a footstool in front of a large mirror propped up against the wall in the living room of the apartment. He was wearing a loose floral robe over his boxers and putting on lipstick in the mirror. Sam might put nylons and a dress on later, but for now he was enjoying the gentle brush of chiffon against his skin. It was hot, and he’d taken off all his clothes when he got home from work. He wasn’t in a hurry to put more on. And what was the rush, anyways? He had all night. Sam considered his face in the mirror, and picked up a comb from a jar on the floor. His hair was an awkward length: he couldn’t really braid it or put it in a bun or anything really _interesting_ , only pull it back into a tiny ponytail (which he did for work) or put it up with sparkly clips, which he liked, but only did at home.

The sound of boots clomping up the stairwell cut through Sam’s reverie. He knew whose feet were in those boots. Sam sighed, just a little. There went a quiet night at home by himself. He listened as the door was wrenched open, and then slammed shut again, keys thrown down on the counter. Suzy was always loud, these days, but she was really outdoing herself. That, combined with her early return home, meant that Sam knew what had happened before he even opened his mouth. 

“You’re home early,” he said. It still seemed like the done thing to enquire. Suzy might want to talk about it.

“Is there no girl,” Suzy wrenched the freezer open, “in this entire city,” she threw open a cupboard door, “who wants to have a good time with me?” Sam heard ice cubes being thrown into a drinking glass so hard that he imagined them shattering in the bottom. “I tell them and I tell,” Suzy says over the sound of running water, “that I want to go dancing, and have lots of sex, but I do not want to play fucking house.” Suzy appeared in the door of the kitchen, holding two glasses of ice water. She was wearing a black tshirt, black jeans, and those loud, black boots. Her hair was mussed and sweaty, but her gold eyeliner was still perfect.

“Megan broke up with you?” Sam asked.

Suzy sighed. “Megan broke up with me,” she said, handing one of the glasses of ice water to Sam. 

“Thank you,” Sam said, taking a drink of cold water. It felt divine. 

Suzy collapsed onto their tiny couch, a few feet away from Sam. You could only ever be a few feet away from everything else at in their tiny apartment.

“All girls want to do is move in with me,” Suzy said. She took a drink of water. “And when I say ‘no thank you, I like my living situation just fine,’ they say ‘oh yeah, well why don’t you go back to your husband then?’ ” Suzy sighed gustily, and laid her head back against the head of the sofa. “I swear, you marry a guy once, when you’re twelve years old, and lesbians never let you forget it.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t tell that story to your girlfriends so often,” Sam said.

“Pfft,” Suzy said. “That story is a pivotal part of my coming-out background. They just don’t like that I’m bisexual.”

“Maybe you should date a guy next?” Sam asked, because he knew his lines in this rant.

“Oh please,” Suzy snorted. “They’re even more territorial about me sharing a one-bedroom apartment with another guy.”

“We have separate beds,” Sam said. “You should show them the separate beds.” Their apartment was technically a one-bedroom, but it had a very large walk-in closet off of the living room, which was where Sam’s twin bed and extensive collection of painting supplies lived. His desk and two racks of his clothes were pushed up against the wall next to the mirror in the living room. Suzy always said it was nice to have so many colorful blouses and skirts in their living room, that it was like art. Her own clothes, all black, were folded in milk crates in her bedroom, which was an actual room.

“Hmm,” Suzy said. “That would necessitate me bringing them home.”

“True,” Sam said, absently, going back to combing his hair. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“I’ll bring someone home when I have someone worth bringing home,” Suzy said. 

Sam hmmmmed at her. Suzy would do whatever it was that Suzy would do. She didn’t really want his input. Sam privately thought that all the girls and boys who dated and then dumped Suzy were onto something; she wasn’t committing to them fully as a primary partner. Sam and Suzy weren’t sleeping together. Well, they did sometimes share a bed at night when one of them had had a really bad day, but they weren’t having sex. And their relationship wasn’t really romantic. But their lives had been so intertwined since they were eleven years old, when they had jumped from the great heights of their separate pain into a tiny bucket of each other, that Sam and Suzy could no longer be easily separated. How did you explain the relationship of your roommate, who was your penpal at the age of eleven, your spouse at the age of twelve, who you grew up with on the same tiny island until the two of you turned eighteen and ‘ran away’ with again, this time to the big city with the full knowledge of all of your parents. Suzy would never say ‘this is Sam, he’s like my brother,’ because Suzy’s relationships with her _actual_ brothers was nothing like her relationship with Sam. Suzy wouldn’t even say, ‘this is Sam, he’s my best friend,’ because other people had best friends, and it wasn’t really the same.

“Enough about me,” Suzy said. “I’m over it.” And the thing was, Sam knew Suzy truly was over it. She’d find another girl or boy to dance with. Suzy wasn’t in love with Megan. “Let’s talk about you,” Suzy said. Sam glanced up at the mirror, to see Suzy looking at his face in it. “That purple lipstick looks fantastic on you, darling. I brought you something.” She dug a bottle of nail polish out of her pocket and handed it to him. Sam examined it: rainbow confetti. She’d never get this color for herself. 

“Did you pay for it?” Sam asked, looking up at her face.

“Yes, Sammy,” Suzy rolled her eyes. “I don’t shoplift for you anymore. I promised.”

“Thank you,” Sam said, gravely. He unscrewed the top of the bottle and began to paint careful stripes of the acrid-smelling gel onto his fingernails. Sam was off of work tomorrow, it would be nice to wear nail polish for a full day.

“You should come out with me sometime,” Suzy said. “In your girl clothes, I mean. No one will bother you, I know all the best gay bars.”

This, too, was a conversation they had often. “I don’t really like clubbing,” Sam said, which was his standard answer and also true. “I’m bringing some things back to NP in September, though.”

“Oh?” Suzy asked. He hadn’t told her that yet. “What will the Captain and the Scoutmaster think of you in a dress?” For some reason, it amused Suzy to call his parents by their titles. She still referred to her own parents as “Council,” so Sam knew it wasn’t because she had something against his parents, specifically. Just parents in general.

“Well, Randy offered to help me tailor some things to fit me better,” Sam said. 

“Really? I didn’t know he could sew.”

“Yes,” Sam nodded. “He’s quite good. And Duffy…” Sam’s father had overheard Randy discussing dresses with Sam on the phone last week. Sam wasn’t afraid of telling his father that he enjoyed painting makeup on his face and soft pastel fabrics on his skin, he just didn’t really talk about clothes with Duffy. Sam had heard, from Randy’s end of the telephone call, his father’s low voice saying ‘let me talk to Sam.’ And then “hello, Sam. I just want you to know that I love you and I want you to be happy. Here’s Randy back again.” And Randy had said, “Sam? You should bring some things to show us, next visit. We’d like that.”

“I don’t think Duffy will understand _why_ I want to wear women’s clothes. But he’ll be supportive.”

Suzy made a low noise of grudging admiration. “He was always good at that.”

“Yes,” Sam said, smiling at himself in the mirror. “He was.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very niche fandom right now, yes? Thanks for reading this, I don't know how you found it. :) I'm on tumblr as dragoninthelibrary, come say hi!


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